A senior Russian official has thrown cold water on resumed peace talks with Ukraine, sharply rejecting a request by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky for Russia to withdraw all troops from Ukraine’s borders.
Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, on Thursday called Zelensky’s request “idiotic and unfeasible in principle.” Medvedev’s remarks, made in a lengthy Telegram post, come a day after Zelensky reiterated that he would not cede any territory to Russia to end the three-month conflict.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said last month that he would not agree to a peace agreement unless Ukraine agreed to “resolve the Crimea and Donbas issues”, creating what has so far been an insurmountable point of contention with Zelensky.
Earlier in the conflict, Zelensky refused to recognize Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea on Ukraine’s Black Sea coast. Following the annexation, Russia turned its attention to Ukraine’s eastern Donbass, where Russian-backed separatists have declared independent republics. Russia has focused its efforts on the region, which has a large ethnic Russian population, after failing to seize the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.
Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, called Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s demands for peace “unfeasible.” Medvedev spoke above during a meeting with members of the Security Council in Moscow on February 21, 2022. ALEXEY NIKOLSKY / Getty Images
Zelensky said earlier this month that the war would end when Ukraine regained control of all its territories currently under Russian control.
“Anticipating his imminent defeat, Ukrainian President Zelensky has found a convenient way out of the impasse,” Medvedev said in his post. “There is no state, no problem. His actions and statements prove that he is now ready to put almost everything on the altar of his political ambitions.”
Medvedev, who was Russia’s president from 2008 to 2012 and its prime minister from 2021 to 2020, criticized Zelensky for ignoring the “will” of residents of the two disputed regions.
Russia annexed Crimea after a widely criticized referendum that was not internationally recognized. The breakaway regions of eastern Ukraine are recognized only by Russia and a handful of other countries. Russia has reportedly held a similar referendum in eastern Ukraine, the BBC reports.
Medvedev also drew attention to a call by former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday to end Ukraine’s war by ceding territory to Russia.
By the way, for many years the venerable old man was not noticed in sympathy for Russia, but he always thought rationally, “Medvedev wrote.
However, Zelensky on Wednesday reiterated his call for Ukraine to remain intact in a speech that exploded Kissinger’s proposal. The Ukrainian leader suggested that Kissinger’s speeches would be more convenient in Nazi Germany.
“It looks like Mr. Kissinger’s calendar isn’t 2022, it’s 1938, and he thought he was talking to an audience not in Davos, but in Munich at the time,” Zelensky said.
Newsweek asked the Ukrainian government for comment.
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